FaceTime redux: AT&T nixes video chat on Google’s updated Hangouts

Yesterday, Google announced its new, beefier Hangouts app for Android phones. The newest iteration integrates video chatting, Gmail, and Google's late “Google Talk” app all into one. Hangouts is available for free on all Android devices running Android 2.3 or higher, but if you pay phone bills to AT&T, you can forget about that video chat for now.

Slashgear reports that customers trying to access video chat on AT&T are met with a message saying “You must be connected to a Wi-Fi network to join a video call.”

The message is reminiscent of news from a year earlier, when AT&T decreed that customers would not be able to use Apple's new FaceTime video chatting over its networks. The company later sort of relented and said it would make the service free to customers on 3G networks—but only if they were on a shared data plan. (We polled Ars readers last July and 89 percent said they'd never pay extra just to use FaceTime). Amid genuine customer outrage and rumors that it was violating network neutrality rules, AT&T eventually saw a formal FCC complaint filed against it. The company then started independently loosening its restrictions on FaceTime.

Ars contacted AT&T for comment, but has yet to hear back. Until then, the official statement that the company gave to Slashgear is all the reasoning we can draw from:

“All AT&T Mobility customers can use any video chat app over cellular that is not pre-loaded on their device, but which they download from the Internet. For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we offer all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share, Tiered, and soon Unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices. It’s up to each OS and device makers to enable their systems to allow pre-loaded video chat apps to work over cellular for our customers on those plans.”

It seems like AT&T is requiring some effort from OS and device makers to enable video chat on Android for Mobile and Tiered customers. Unlimited plan customers appear to be left out in the dark in the immediate future.

Editor's note: We've removed a sentence about AT&T saying it would charge for FaceTime. An AT&T representative contacted us about the sentence and reminded us that it was a rumor.